List of Accidents and Incidents Involving Commercial Aircraft - 1968

1968

• March 6 – Air France Flight 212 crashed into the northwestern slope of La Soufrière Mountain, in Guadeloupe with the loss of all 63 lives on board.
• March 24 – Aer Lingus Flight 712, a Vickers Viscount 803, crashes off the Irish coast; all 61 on board perish.
• April 8 – BOAC Flight 712, a Boeing 707, suffers an engine fire after takeoff from London Heathrow Airport; the plane makes an emergency landing at Heathrow, but five of 127 aboard die in the resulting fire.
• April 20 – South African Airways Flight 228, a Boeing 707, crashes just after takeoff from Strijdom International Airport, Windhoek, South West Africa (now Namibia) due to pilot error; of the 128 on board, only 5 survive.
• May 3 – Braniff Flight 352, a Lockheed L-188A Super Electra en route from Houston, Texas to Dallas, breaks up in mid-air in a thunderstorm and crashes near Dawson, Texas; killing its five crew and 80 passengers. Nine years earlier Braniff Flight 542 crashed 49 miles (79 km) away in Buffalo.
• May 22 – Los Angeles Airways Flight 841, a Sikorsky S-61L, crashes near Paramount, California resulting in the loss of 23 lives.
• July 1 – Seaboard World Airlines Flight 253A, a Douglas DC-8, is forced to land in the Soviet Union; on board are over 200 American troops bound for Vietnam.
• July 3 – In the 1968 BKS Air Transport Heathrow crash, an Airspeed Ambassador freight aircraft experiences metal fatigue and crashes while landing, striking two unoccupied British European Airways airliners. Six of the freighter's crew of eight are killed, as are eight racehorses being transported. All Airspeed Ambassadors are grounded until a redesign strengthens the flaps. One of the BEA aircraft is repaired but is lost in the 1972 Staines air disaster.
• July 23 – Three members of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijack El Al Flight 426 from Rome to Tel Aviv. Diverting to Algiers the negotiations extend over forty days. Both the hijackers and the hostages go free.
• August 14 – Los Angeles Airways Flight 417, a Sikorsky S-61L prototype, crashes in Compton, California resulting in the loss of 21 lives.
• September 11 – Air France Flight 1611, a Sud Aviation SE-210 Caravelle, crashes off Nice, France, after a fire in the cabin, killing 95 passengers and crew.
• October 25 – Northeast Airlines Flight 946, a Fairchild 227, crashes near Etna, New Hampshire, killing 32 passengers and crew.
• November 22 – Japan Airlines Flight 2, a Douglas DC-8, ditches in San Francisco Bay as a result of pilot error, all on board survive.
• November 24 – Luis Armando Pena Soltren, Jose Rafael Rios Cruz and Miguel Castro coerce the pilot of Pan Am Flight 281 out of New York's John F. Kennedy Airport on a scheduled route to Puerto Rico to divert to Havana, Cuba. Passengers were evacuated from Cuba by a U.S. State Department aircraft. There were no fatalities.
• December 2 – Wien Consolidated Airlines Flight 55, a Fairchild F-27B, crashes into Pedro Bay, Alaska. All 39 passengers and crew on board are killed.
• December 12 – Pan Am Flight 217, a Boeing 707, crashes near Caracas, Venezuela as a result of pilot error; all 51 on board died.
• December 24 – Allegheny Airlines Flight 736, a Convair CV-580, crashes while on approach to Bradford Regional Airport. 20 of the 47 passengers and crew on board are killed.
• December 27 – North Central Airlines Flight 458, a Convair CV-580, crashes into a hangar at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois, killing 27 of the 45 people on board and one person on the ground.
• December 31 – MacRobertson Miller Airlines Flight 1750, a Vickers Viscount, crashes in Australia, killing all 26 people on board.